Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. All of us in this House have an obligation to channel the understandable anger of the Irish people from the revelations over the past week into something positive, and to do something constructive. Above all else, the public want to see the criminal justice system work efficiently. I note from today's Irish Independent that the Central Bank is undertaking its own investigation into the question of whether or not it was deliberately misled by Anglo Irish Bank. I find it extraordinary that the Central Bank appears not to have had access to the tapes. It came as news to them, as it did to everybody else.

On the issue of the inquiry, our view is that it should be a fully independent public inquiry. It needs to deal with all of the key issues involved in the banking collapse in a comprehensive way. First and foremost, it should deal with the failures within the banks. In addition, the role of auditors, the financial regulator and the Central Bank must also be carefully examined. Of course, the question of political oversight and political decisions that were made should also be looked at, as well as ECB policy in the European context.

One of the flaws which is glaringly obvious in the approach the Government is taking is that from the very outset, if one goes down the road of a parliamentary inquiry, one is excluding a whole bunch of important people concerning the banking collapse from any possibility of having an adverse finding delivered against them.

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